Drudge Retort: The Other Side of the News

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Tuesday, August 18, 2026

64% of Americans disapprove of Trump's White House performance, Reuters/Ipsos poll shows. 80% expect US involvement in Iran to continue for an extended period, Reuters/Ipsos poll shows. read more


Locals are preparing for the possibility of ICE at the polls and contested election results. read more


Health data appears to be most affected by administration's attempt to wipe findings that don't align with its priorities, tracker shows.


The number of people worth more than $100 million whom President Donald Trump has appointed to his administration is more than four times the combined total of the three previous presidents


President Donald Trump says vandals are to blame for large swaths of dead grass on the National Mall ... read more


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... A database of federal law enforcement officer misconduct records. A survey measuring physical, sexual and emotional violence against children and youth. Real-time pollution readings collected by air quality monitors from US embassies around the world.

These are among the hundreds of federal datasets that the Trump administration has taken down or altered as part of its aggressive campaign to wipe all mentions of data findings that do not align with the administration's priorities.

Over the past year and a half, at least 28 federal datasets have been deleted and another 338 data collections have been modified, according to an online tracker released last week from dataindex.us, a group of data policy experts, researchers and developers that formed last year to monitor changes to government data.

"We're at a very vulnerable point as a nation," said Denice Ross, former US chief data scientist under the Biden administration and a co-founder of dataindex.us. "We're facing a future where we are not going to have the information that we need to make decisions that will save lives and benefit American communities."

The tracker includes detailed information about deleted or altered datasets from more than 60 federal agencies that span the environment, labor, law enforcement and other topics. But datasets on health appear to be the most affected by the Trump administration's crackdown, comprising about 40% of the total number of terminated or altered data collections tracked by dataindex.us. ...


Xi, Putin, Kim Flex Muscles in Pacific as Trump Pulls Last Aircraft Carrier
www.newsweek.com

... With President Donald Trump ordering the U.S. Navy's only actively deployed aircraft carrier in the Asia-Pacific to aid operations in the Middle East, Washington's top three rivals in the region have only stepped up challenges to U.S. partners. ...

Gee, who could have seen that coming?


... Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, an Army National Guard veteran, has repeatedly elevated military recruiting successes into the marquee achievement of his tenure and folded recruiting, long treated as an apolitical function of the military, into a broader culture-war proxy.

In remarks to roughly two dozen of the military's top recruiters at the Pentagon in December, Hegseth framed improved enlistment numbers as a reflection of confidence in the administration.

"You can talk about polls, you can talk about money, but men and women willing to serve and put on the uniform is a reflection of the belief they have in civilian leadership and military leadership," he told them.

Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell, in a statement to ABC News, shared that same sentiment, adding that, "Americans everywhere are prouder than ever to serve in our unmatched military that prioritizes lethality, merit, and protecting our nation from those who seek to harm it."

Yet the military has been selling effectively the same proposition since the U.S. abandoned the draft and fully transitioned to an all-volunteer force in 1973: job stability and benefits, with a sense of adventure to sweeten the deal. What has changed, however, is the politics surrounding that bargain.

The military's recruiting rebound is real, but the reasons behind it are far less political than Hegseth's framing suggests.

ABC News interviewed nearly 40 recruits and prospective recruits at different stages of enlistment, along with two dozen recruiters across the military and current and former defense officials, and found young Americans are still largely making the same calculation that has driven enlistment for decades: steady pay, education benefits, job training and a direct path to the middle class. ...


White House pressuring Netanyahu to condemn Israeli settler siege in West Bank
www.independent.co.uk

... White House officials are pushing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to openly condemn a settler-led siege of a Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank, according to U.S. and Israeli sources on Friday.

The pressure comes as settlers pitched another tent in the area before military forces intervened to dismantle it.

For nearly a week, settlers have blockaded homes in the village of Qusra. Human rights organizations report that the siege is part of an organized attempt to claim additional territory intended for a future Palestinian state.

The blockade drew rare public criticism from Washington on Thursday, with Mike Huckabee, the U.S. Ambassador to Israel and a prominent proponent of Jewish settlement in the West Bank, labeling the settlers surrounding a Palestinian residence as "Israeli terrorists." ...

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